Coffee Table Arcade Hides Its Controls

January 16, 2013 by Mike Szczys 15 Comments

arcade-coffee-table-with-self-hiding-controls

[Hoogen] did a fantastic job of building arcade hardware into this Ikea coffee table. Sound familiar? We just looked at another Ikea coffee table arcade, but this one goes quite a different route. It uses a Ramvik table which has a very deep drawer in the end where the controls are located. The image to the left shows that you’re going to have a problem with the joystick when you try to close it. [Hoogen] came up with a clever mechanism to overcome this issue.

This is not an emulated system. It uses a JAMMA board called the iCade 60-in-1 to bring sixty classic arcade games to the build. To interface with this hardware [Hoogen] included a JAMMA full cabinet wiring harness. The inset image on the right is pretty small, but it shows the speaker mounted in the back of the drawer, as well as the control surface angled down. This tilting surface is what allows the controls to move out of the way when closing the drawer. This happens automatically as described by [Hoogen] in his write-up.

Fabricating Hardware From The Original Arcade Pong Schematics

December 22, 2012 by Mike Szczys 33 Comments

original-arcade-pong-rebuild

This heavily populated PCB is a recreation of the original arcade version of Pong. That is an important distinction because the home version of Pong used a specialized chip to do much of the work. This is basically all stock logic, which explains the high component count. We wonder how many quarters it took just to pay for all 66 chips at the time?

[Pong74ls] was the person who took on this project. There is an original schematic available, but it’s incredibly crowded and rather difficult to figure out. Fortunately [Dan Boris] has already done a lot of the heavy work. He took the one-page nightmare and turned it into a sixteen page plan for building the original board (look for the schematic link under technical details).

Before the board could be laid out some redesign work was necessary. It sounds like some of the original chips are out of production and suitable replacements needed to be found. The board was then laid out in Eagle before sending the design off to a fab house. There was just one error which didn’t allow the ball to bounce when hitting a paddle while travelling downward. A couple of jumper wires fixed that right up!

[via Reddit]

[Original Reddit Post]

Coin-op Sega Rally Used To Race RC Cars

November 30, 2012 by Mike Szczys 10 Comments

Head to head video game action can’t even compare to this use of a coin-op Sega Rally game to race actual RC vehicles. Take a close look at those screens and you’ll see there are no computer graphics, just a feed for a camera on each of the toy cars.

The project was conceived for the Sapo Codebits VI conference in Portugal. The arcade cabinets had their controls connected to an Arduino, but getting video up and running wasn’t nearly as easy. After fruitless attempts to get the original CRTs to work the team ended up replacing them with functioning CRT units of the same size. The cars themselves have two camera, one on top of the vehicle’s cab and one mounted on a boom for a perspective that was above and behind the vehicle. The drivers can switch between either view. The cars were set loose in the room serving as the event’s retro gaming area and players were free to race each other wherever they pleased. Don’t miss the video clip after the break which shows off all of the fun. Continue reading “Coin-op Sega Rally Used To Race RC Cars” →

Building A Classic Coin-op Game In An FPGA

September 5, 2012 by Mike Szczys 17 Comments

This game of Bomb Jack is the same as the original arcade version. The difference is that this hardware was built in an FPGA using schematics found on the Internet.

We’re a little shocked by the complexity of such a project. We’ve been impressed before by the use of FPGAs to implement classic CRT vector graphics. But that project used a library that had already implemented the original game. For this effort, [Alex] wanted to find a game that hadn’t ever been translated to an FPGA, and used stock parts. Bomb Jack is a 1984 platformer which ran on a Z80 processor, AY-3-8192 sound generators, and common TTL logic chips. This meant he didn’t have to write the cores himself, but rather use already existing versions of the chips and code together the hardware.

You can read about his experience at the page linked at the top, or just jump after the break to see video of the final project. You can see the monitor is on its side, and the game sounds great and runs flawlessly.

Continue reading “Building A Classic Coin-op Game In An FPGA” →

Toorcamp: The Church Of Robotron

August 20, 2012 by Eric Evenchick 4 Comments

“Only 72 years until the Robotrons conclude that the human race is inefficient and must be destroyed. Only the mutant produced by a genetic engineering accident can save us now!” –Church of Robotron Doctrine

Based on the 1982 arcade game Robotron: 2084, Dorkbot PDX’s Church of Robotron was an impressive installation at Toorcamp. Located in a large dome, the Chruch features an altar where the the player kneels and finds out if they are the saviour.

Many things in the Church are triggered by game events. Lasers fired in time with the game, a bright LED flashes at the player when they die, and the LCD display above the altar shows high scores. There’s a webcam that takes a player’s picture when they die so that it can be added to the high score list. There was also a Jacob’s Ladder and a fog machine to add to the eerie feel of the Church.

A side room in the dome has a TV displaying list of high scores, handouts of their doctrine and documentation, and stickers of the Church’s logo. Aside from the electronics, the group also created lore around the installation. There was a sermon that played on a constant loop at night, and the doctrine handouts explained the story of the Church. This is all documented on their website, and the build details and source are also available.

The combination of art, lore, and electronics made this installation one of my favourites at Toorcamp, even though I’m awful at the game. I’ll need to practice my Robotron for next time the group sets up the Church.

Building The Most Offensive Video Game Ever

July 29, 2012 by Brian Benchoff 76 Comments

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pZ70teW678&w=470]

[Autuin] created the most offensive video game ever. Inside a small cocktail arcade cabinet, he installed his own video game that recreates the experiences of the Space Shuttle Challenger and her crew on their last flight.

The build started off by picking up an old cocktail version of Space Zap from The Hackery, a neat little recycling place that turns old computers, monitors, and even old arcade machines into something useful again. After [Autuin] lugged his arcade machine back to his home base at Free Geek Vancouver.

After drooling over the 30-year-old circuitry, [Autuin] disassembled the old machine and installed a mint condition 19″ VGA monitor where an ancient black and white CRT once resided. The control panels replete with their comically large buttons were refurbished and connected to an Arduino and the whole shebang hooked up to a slightly outdated computer.

The real magic happened when [Autuin] coded his game. He created a few sprites from NASA archival footage and made a game where a shuttle takes off and is controllable by each player. As the most offensive video game ever, the space shuttle blows up shortly after launch, declaring ‘game over’ for both players.

[Autuin] will be showing off his new arcade game with a new bezel and cabinet graphics during Vancouver’s Eastside Culture Crawl this November. The game will probably be updated by then; we suggested editing the ‘time to explosion’ to T+73 seconds, but [Autuin] said he’s thinking of ways to make it even more awful.

Update: Androcade 2.0

June 7, 2012 by Mike Szczys 1 Comment

[Chris] has been going about his business, letting his interest guide him as it will. But always in the back of his mind is his Androcade project, and he’s spent the last year making improvements. It’s an arcade controller for playing games on an Android tablet. It connects to the device via Bluetooth, and includes a built-in stand.

His original version was featured here last year. It was made from wood (with a nice Android green finish) and included three buttons and a joystick. This time around he moved to some black laser-cut acrylic for the case, and has doubled up on the buttons. It also now enumerates as an HID Bluetooth device, whereas before it was pushing serial data over the BT connection.

He’s had enough interest from his friends to also create an iPad version all in white. It connects and works just the same as the Android flavor. Check out a bit of Donkey Kong gameplay after the break.

Continue reading “Update: Androcade 2.0” →